Tag Archives: Putin

The Nord Stream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and into the European network seems to be on course despite US pressure and challenges from Ukraine and other European countries. While all this is going on, construction of another pipeline is underway to supply Turkey and Europe with gas. …

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it had made U.S. actor Steven Seagal its special representative for Russian-U.S. humanitarian ties, a role it said was meant to deepen cultural, art and youth ties between the two countries. President Vladimir Putin presented a Russian passport to U.S. actor Steven Seagal in …

Russia will deploy its military police on the Golan Heights frontier between Syria and Israel, its defense ministry said on Thursday, after weeks of mounting volatility in the area. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s sweeping away of rebels in southwestern Syria has worried Israel, which believes it could allow his Iranian …

One of the main deals announced between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump at their summit last week in Helsinki — coordinated steps to help stabilize the situation in Syria — is already running into trouble. Facing a storm of criticism in Washington of their meeting, …

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave President Donald Trump an Adidas soccer ball during a news conference last week in Helsinki, Finland — and the ball may have contained a transmitter chip. Images of the ball Putin handed to Trump appear to show a logo indicating it has a chip included …

The leader of South Ossetia, a Russian-backed breakaway region of Georgia, met Moscow’s ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Monday, Syrian state media reported. South Ossetia’s President Anatoly Bibilov is on a three-day visit to Syria two months after Damascus recognized his country’s independence, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in wars in …

The FBI on Saturday night released the surveillance records from the wiretap on Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign aide whose surveillance by the FBI was at the center of a declassified Republican memo released in February by House Intelligence Committee Republicans. The documents released were once classified as top secret. The …

France sent 50 tonnes of medical aid to government-controlled eastern Ghouta in Syria on Friday after Russia agreed to facilitate its delivery, raising hopes for future aid efforts, French officials said. The aid, which will arrive on a Russian plane to a Russian military base in north-western Syria from France …

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday that he stands by the U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and he warned that the Kremlin has not stopped trying to undermine American democracy. “My view has not changed, which is that Russia attempted to interfere with the …

For nearly 80 years the US and Russia (or the former Soviet Union) have held summits. In each case, it has been a forum for domestic political debate. The president’s supporters always say the summit took solid steps towards peace and understanding, even while the president remained forceful and unyielding. …

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he accepts the conclusion that Russia sought to influence the 2016 US election, attempting to quell a firestorm over his failure to challenge Vladimir Putin a day earlier. “I have felt very strongly that while Russia’s actions had no impact at all on the outcome …

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rushed into Syria three years ago in an effort to save his ally President Bashar Assad, now says he can work with the U.S. to bring peace and reconciliation to the war-torn country. “As far as Syria is concerned,” Putin said, standing next to President …

For as long as history remembers Donald Trump, it will be a day that will live in infamy. The President’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday is already one of the most notorious moments in the tortured relations between Washington and Moscow. Trump sides with Putin …

Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin vowed a fresh start to troubled relations between the world’s greatest nuclear powers at their first summit on Monday, as the American leader rejected a chance to condemn Moscow’s alleged manipulation of US elections. The US and Russian leaders came out of their meeting …

President Donald Trump told his Russian counterpart that he would discuss “everything from trade to military to missiles to nuclear to China” during their one-on-one meeting at a high-stakes summit in Helsinki Monday. Not mentioned in his opening remarks during a handshake photo opportunity: Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, …

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russia on Wednesday that Israel would not seek to topple its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Moscow should encourage Iranian forces to quit Syria, a senior Israeli official said. Netanyahu conveyed the message in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the official said, …

In some alternate universe, it may make sense for the president of the United States to meet with his Russian counterpart to negotiate an end to the fighting in Syria. It would be a universe in which the American president weren’t constantly denigrating European allies, and the Russian president weren’t habitually lying about …

The poisoning of a British couple in provincial England is most likely collateral damage from the attempted assassination of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, experts have said. The couple, identified by British media as Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charles Rowley, 45, were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, the …

A centerpiece of the upcoming Helsinki summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be the future of Syria and a proposal to enlist Russia as a partner in ousting Iran from that battlefield. In an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” National Security Adviser Ambassador John …

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia has withdrawn 1,140 military personnel and 13 warplanes from Syria in last few days. “As you know, we started withdrawing our forces during my visit to Hmeimim base. This withdrawal continues now,” Putin said at a ceremony for military …

Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to hold a summit in a third country with Donald Trump at talks on Wednesday with the US leader’s hawkish national security adviser, voicing hope for an easing of tensions between the two nations. Speaking after Putin’s meeting with John Bolton in Moscow, the Kremlin’s …

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is not trying to split the European Union. His remarks come ahead of a visit to Austria, his first trip to a Western European country in nearly a year. He told Austria’s ORF station he wanted a “united and prosperous” EU, calling the …

The Spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Bahram Ghassemi, responded to Vladimir Putin’s statement regarding the withdrawal of all foreign nations from Syria. “We will stay inside Syria as long as there is a terrorist threat and as long as the Syrian government wants us there,” Ghassemi stated this morning. …

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Thursday that “foreign armed forces” would leave Syria, according to Syria’s state-run news agency, SANA. Assad was on a surprise visit to Russia. He and his counterpart hailed the beginning of the “political process” in Syria amid an ongoing “fight against …

The Democratic National Committee opened a new legal assault on President Trump on Friday by filing a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the organization was the victim of a conspiracy by Russian officials, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential run. The 66-page lawsuit, filed in …

Western allies warned Syria on Saturday that they could launch further attacks if chemical weapons are used again, even as Syria’s powerful backer Russia denounced the missile strikes but gave no signs of possible retaliation. The flurry of statements after Friday’s coordinated strike of U.S. cruise missiles — along with …

The Russian military says that an alleged chemical attack in Syria was staged and directed by Britain. Volunteer first responders and activists claimed a chemical attack by the Syrian government killed over 40 people in the town of Douma, which drew international outrage and prompted Washington and its allies to …

This week in the Russia investigations: Mueller sends the feds to meet some international arrivees; new sanctions on some powerful, wealthy Russians; and Mr. Zuckerberg goes to Washington. Fade in: A gleaming new Gulfstream 650 — or maybe it’s a Sukhoi business jet — sweeps in for a landing at …

In an aside during what was supposed to be a speech about infrastructure last week, President Trump announced, “We’re coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon we’re coming out.” This was at odds with what basically …

The presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran are convening in Turkey for the first time as part of the latest talks regarding ceasefires and the future of Syria. The April 4 talks are the latest high-level talks among the heads of the three countries, who are meeting a few weeks …

Poland signed a $4.75 billion deal with the United States Wednesday to buy air defense Patriot missile systems as it seeks to bolster its defenses against a resurgent Russia. President Andrzej Duda described the deal for the state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems as “historic” for his country and its armed …

To nobody’s surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin won reelection to a fourth term yesterday, by a wide margin. With Putin’s (last?) presidential election in the books, I reached out to my colleagues at PONARS-Eurasia for a quick take on the implications of Sunday’s election in Russia. Here’s what they had …

President Trump escalated his assault on federal law enforcement agencies Saturday while one of his attorneys argued that the controversial firing of a top FBI official was reason to end the Justice Department special counsel’s expansive Russia investigation. After Attorney General Jeff Sessions acted late Friday night on Trump’s publicly …

Russia says it has successfully test-launched a hypersonic missile, one of a range of nuclear-capable weapons announced by President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. The country’s defence ministry released video footage showing the missile detaching from a fighter jet and leaving a fiery trail behind it. It said the intended …

Police are trying to identify a substance which caused a former Russian agent convicted of spying for Britain to collapse in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Sergei Skripal, 66 – who was granted refuge in the UK in 2010 as part of a “spy swap” – and a 33-year-old woman are critically ill …

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that he will “never” extradite the 13 Russian nationals whom special counsel Robert Mueller charged with conspiring to interfere in the 2016 US election. Putin made the comments during an interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly. It was Kelly’s second interview with the Russian …

The United States’ missile defense buildup poses no threat to Russia’s security as the country has many options to defeat any threat, Viktor Bondarev, the chair of the Russian upper house’s defense and security committee, told TASS on Saturday. Earlier in the day, a military-diplomatic source said that the United …

Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted Thursday that his country has developed a nuclear-powered missile with an unlimited range that is also completely immune to enemy intercept. Speaking during an annual state-of-the-nation speech in Moscow, Putin said the cruise missile is capable of penetrating any missile defense and can reach virtually any target around the …

There are growing indications that US airstrikes killed and injured dozens of Russian military contractors in northern Syria earlier this month. But in stark contrast to the death of a Russian pilot shot down by rebels in Syria In January, when the airman was hailed as a hero by the …

Russia’s still debating laws on cryptocurrencies, but engineers at a top-secret nuclear lab were already busy mining them, authorities said. The Scientific Research Institute for Experimental Physics, where the first Soviet nuclear weapon was produced in 1949, Friday reported “an attempt at unauthorized use of the institutes’s equipment for personal …

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. …

A series of mysterious attacks against the main Russian military base in Syria, including one conducted by a swarm of armed miniature drones, has exposed Russia’s continued vulnerability in the country despite recent claims of victory by President Vladimir Putin. The attacks have also spurred a flurry of questions over …

by Graham E. Fuller* — With the emergence of demonstrations and rioting in various Iranian cities earlier this month, Washington’s neoconservatives and interventionist/ imperial-minded “liberals” have been given a new lease on life in promoting their aspirations for “regime change” in Tehran. Indeed, of the three current potential global flashpoints—North …

Russian forces have foiled a drone attack on an airbase in Syria just days after reports that rebel shelling had damaged several planes, activists say. The attempt to bomb the Hmeimim base near the north-western city of Latakia on Saturday was thwarted when unmanned aircraft were shot down, the Syrian …